Junk Free June Wrap Up

If you’d told me a month ago that I would easily go a month without Junk Food I would have told you you were dreaming. But here I am, a month later and Junk Free June is done with only a small confession to make. I found the month so much easier to do then I thought, but I think that the foundation of change I’ve been building over the past 2 months with my Miracle Morning’s and The Five Minute Journal made it easier.

The first week was hard, but only because I’ve trained myself to eat sweets after our evening meal and I’m a big snacker of junk food while I’m working. It was breaking the habit that was hard more so then not eating the foods I think. I’ve also come to realise that when it comes to junk food I’m a little bit like an alcoholic. They say that alcoholics can’t be social drinkers; it’s a slippery slope between social drinking and continuous drinking. I think it’s the same for me and junk food.

I can’t have junk food in the house. If it’s here, I’ll eat it. I don’t think it makes me weak, it’s just who I am. It’s the same with fabric, if it’s in the house I’ll want to fondle it. It’s all part of my charm.

I know it sounds like an obvious thing, but admitting to myself that I just don’t have the personality that can abstain while junk food is within the house was a massive milestone for me. I got honest with myself and accepted that just because I can’t abstain doesn’t mean I’m a horrible failure, it just means that the strategies I use to work within my traits is a little different. And that’s cool with me. 

For June HUBBY and I agreed that we just wouldn’t buy anything and bring it into the house. Simple. It’s worked really well and every time we did a trip to the supermarket and we didn’t bring anything home with us I did a little mental victory dance and basked in the glow of my awesomeness for a few minutes.

We also committed to making meals all month instead of buying them. Again, not such a hard thing but we’d gotten into a bad rut of buying meals when we didn’t feel like cooking. We got a little smarter about what we were doing and planned our meals a little more and bought in bulk so we weren’t heading to the supermarket (land of temptation) too often. It worked well and I’ve got to say I’ve enjoyed the family meal time more this month.

I ate a lot of soup this month, which was really handy for the days I was at work and for not having to put much thought into lunches. I also made the decision to swap out white bread and rice for wholemeal and whole grain breads and brown and basmati rice. I haven’t noticed a difference in terms of enjoyment, in fact I think I actually prefer the whole grain breads.

Traveling added a degree of difficulty to the whole thing as well, with an overnighter in Sydney, a day trip to Sydney and then 4 days in Bendigo I knew it was going to be tough. I’d planned for it and I had made a deal with myself that if I was good all month I could splurge on 2 things while in Bendigo; hot chips and a dessert.

Our time in Sydney was fine. I struggled a bit with not eating dessert while we were out but having all the lovely quilty things to think and talk about help distract me. I took healthy snacks with me for the road trips and made sure that when we stopped I got healthy meals.

Bendigo was easy to avoid junk food as well because we were busy and I was sick. I ate three meals a day with no snacking in between. I did eat hot chips with a couple of meals, but I never finished all of them and I had a little “helper” who liked to pick them off one by one as well so it wasn’t like I pigged out on them. I also splurged and ordered a dessert at a Spanish restaurant we went to, but again I didn’t finish it and it wasn’t as good as I was imagining all month so that helped.

The 7.5 hour car trip each way was made easier because there’s so many healthy pit stop places popping up. We stopped at Oliver’s in Gundagai on both the way down and the way back. We also stopped at The Weekend Local in Euroa on the way home and was pleasantly surprised by the yummy local foods they had on offer. I also splurged here and got 2 small 200g organic chocolate blocks to help me keep my energy up on the drive home.

Over the month of June I also joined the gym and started going to the gym 3 times a week. It’s been really good, although the last 2 weeks have been a bit hit and miss with traveling and being sick. But, unlike in previous years I’m not dreading the gym and I’ve actually (shock, horror!) missed the gym while I’ve not been going. I’m looking forward to kicking this virus and getting back to my morning routine.

I lost 4.3kg over the course of the month which feels like a minor miracle given how easy I’ve been putting on weight lately. I’m so happy to see the scales going the other way. I’ve not been killing myself at the gym – I do 30 minutes walking on the treadmill and some light stretching, that’s it. Other than cutting out the junk food and swapping my whites for browns I’ve not altered my diet in any other way (although both of those are big changes).

I’m going into July with the no junk food rule firmly in place. Our wallets and our bodies are so much better off because of it and it’s not been that big a chore so I feel like to go back to our previous habits now would be such a disappointment and a waste of a great month.  I can’t say that junk food will never pass these lips again, but I’ve proved to myself now that I don’t need it the way I used to think I did and that I can have a really good time without it. Now, to just kick my Coke Zero habit and I’ll be golden!